yesterday, on the car ride home,
I had to pull over and
imagine you
slipping your slight fingers
under my shirt and over my fluttering heart-
—
I let my eyes roll inwards
and back
to that blinking
jungle of cobweb confusion
that blossoms
in your body
between sleep and sight.
Where everything flashes
then falls
loose
and limp.
“I had to” by Angie Hoover-Hillhouse
Artwork: Wildwood by Elle Hanley
I feel the dull but insistent teeth of your dinner fork
tugging at moth holes
in my sun dress
asking for me to be more bare
for you
more raw
for you
and so I let them needle away
until the threads are unknotted
and the cloth falls to the floor, and
I am
all that you want me to be
“Your Toy” by Angie Hoover-Hillhouse
Artwork: “Sleep When You Die” by Kieran Sperring
She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun, and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace, and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage! She had been summoned to behold a revelation. Then Janie felt a pain remorseless sweet that left her limp and languid.
Zora Neale Hurston Their Eyes Were Watching God
Artwork by Leigh Viner
onyx fingers curl
and stretch
through stone and steal
through blood and death
heaven glows in all of her
the sky below
the sea above
coming slowly
like the daylight
orange, red, and yellow flow
all is brilliant
like the morning
worn but strong in clouds of silk
“The Body” by Angie Hoover-Hillhouse
The Show Tell Project 